The evolution of allure: sexual selection from the Medici Venus to the Incredible Hulk

454 Pages·1996·3.27 MB·English

by  George L. Hersey

The Evolution of Allure : Sexual Selection
title: From the Medici Venus to the Incredible
Hulk
author: Hersey, George L.
publisher: MIT Press
isbn10 | asin: 0262082446
print isbn13: 9780262082440
ebook isbn13: 9780585032535
language: English
subject Sex role in art, Art and society.
publication date: 1996
lcc: N8241.5.H47 1996eb
ddc: 700
subject: Sex role in art, Art and society.
The Evolution of
Allure
T MIT P
HE RESS
C , M
AMBRIDGE ASSACHUSETTS
L , E
ONDON NGLAND
The Evolution Of
Allure
Sexual Selection
From The
Medici Venus
To The
Incredible Hulk
GEORGE L. HERSEY
©1996 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any
form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying,
recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in
writing from the publisher.
This book was set in Meta by The MIT Press.
Printed and bound in the United States of America.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hersey, George L.
The evolution of allure: sexual selection from the Medici Venus to the
Incredible Hulk/
George L. Hersey.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-262-08244-6 (hc: alk. paper)
1. Sex role in art. 2. Art and society. I. Title.
N8241.S.H47 1996
700dc20 95-38927
CIP
To Jane Maddox Lancefield Hersey
Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: Aphrodite's Daughters xi
1 Sexual Selection 1
Augmentation 5
Borrowing, Translation, and Exchange 8
Sperm Competition 10
Clothes as Genital Maps 12
2 Incarnate Christs and Selectable Saints 21
The Incarnation 22
The Immaculate Conception 26
Magdalen and Teresa 32
3 Body Canons 41
Polykleitos, Praxiteles, and Vitruvius 44
Canons and Number: Alberti, Leonardo, Michelangelo, 47
Dürer, and Lomazzo
William Wetmore Story and the Seal of Solomon 56
4 Aryans and Semites 61
Aryanism 62
Aryan Art: Frederic Leighton 69
Semitic Art: The Etruscans, Cimabue, and Michelangelo 76
Two Afro-Aryan Heroines 80
5 More Body Prescribers 85
Selecting Scientifically: Lavater, Ammon, Virchow, and 86
Kretschmer
Endomorphs, Mesomorphs, Ectomorphs, and W. H. 90
Sheldon
6 Galton and Lombroso 101
Worse and Better Faces 102
Breeding Baroque Bodies: Guido Reni 106
The Monsters among Us 112
Women, Ornament, and Degeneration 116
Morelli and Lombrosan Connoisseurship 124
7 Max Nordau 129
More Degeneration 130
Erotomania: Verlaine and Rodin 133
Brain Decay: Whistler, Boldini, and J. W. Alexander 137
8 Into Nazism 147
Paul Schultze-Naumburg: Rubens and Rembrandt 148
Jacob Epstein and Racial Treachery 154
The 120-Year Reich 157
9 Hyperdevelopment Today 165
Augmentation: Hercules and Batman 166
Exchange: Arnold, Diana of Ephesus, Kristy Ramsey, 170
and Hannah Höch
Dimorphism: The Incredible Hulk, His Friends, and the 174
Sage Grouse
Notes 181
Selected Bibliography 199
Index 211